Page 1 of Her Vampire Hero

Chapter One

Jenny Cortado's knuckles whitened as she gripped the steering wheel of her beloved 1963 Volkswagen Beetle deluxe ragtop sedan. The rain pelted the windshield like an army of tiny fists, and the wipers squeaked in protest as they fought a losing battle against the deluge.

"Come on, baby," she murmured, patting the dashboard affectionately. "Just a little farther."

The vintage Bug responded with a worrying sputter, but Jenny chose to interpret it as agreement. She'd rebuilt this beauty from the ground up, pouring her heart, soul, and more than a few colorful curse words into every inch of German engineering. It couldn't fail her now. Not when she was so close to changing her life forever.

Lightning forked across the sky, illuminating a road sign that read, "Welcome to Beastly Falls - Population: ??" The question marks were an odd choice, Jenny mused. Maybe the sign painter had a twisted sense of humor. Or maybe—

CLUNK

The Bug gave one final, dramatic cough and rolled to a stop, mere feet before the welcome sign.

"No, no, no!" Jenny slammed her palm against the steering wheel. "Don't you dare die on me now, you temperamental tin can."

She turned the key, but the engine remained stubbornly silent. With a groan that was equal parts frustration and resignation, Jenny popped the hood and stepped out into the storm.

Rain immediately plastered her dark hair to her skull, and she silently thanked whatever deity was listening that she'd opted for waterproof mascara. The last thing she needed was to look like a raccoon that had gone ten rounds with a fire hose.

Jenny propped open the hood and peered into the engine compartment, scanning for any obvious issues. Nothing jumped out at her, which was both a relief and supremely annoying. She'd have preferred a glaringly obvious problem she could MacGyver her way out of with a hairpin and sheer force of will.

"Okay, think," she muttered, pushing her soaked bangs out of her eyes. "What would those pompous jackasses at your last job say?"

She pitched her voice lower in a mocking imitation of her former coworkers. "'Have you tried turning it off and on again, sweetheart? Maybe it's just too complicated for your pretty little head.'" Jenny snorted. "Yeah, because clearly, possession of a Y chromosome is required to understand internal combustion."

She fiddled with a few connections, checking for loose wires or corroded terminals, all the while acutely aware that she was in serious trouble if she couldn’t get the Bug running again. Her interview was in less than three days, and she'd factored in plenty of travel time for unexpected delays. But this? This was pushing it.

After fifteen fruitless minutes of tinkering, Jenny was soaked to the bone and no closer to a solution, but at least the rain had stopped. She slammed the hood shut with more force than strictly necessary and glared at her traitorous vehicle.

"Fine," she growled. "Be that way. I'll just walk to the nearest gas station and call a tow truck. And when I'm famous for customizing kick-ass vintage cars on national TV, don't expect to be invited to the wrap party."

Jenny grabbed her phone and stalked away from her car, passing the weird town sign. But after a few minutes, sherealized she was low on battery and there wasn’t a signal. Because of course there wasn't. Why make things easy? Maybe she just needed to charge the phone. Of course, the cord was back in the car.

With a deep, centering breath that did absolutely nothing to center her, Jenny started walking back the way she came. The town of Beastly Falls had to have a garage, right? All she needed was shelter to dry off and maybe a sympathetic ear to vent her frustrations. Preferably attached to a body holding a large cup of coffee.

She'd gone about twenty paces back to her car when she slammed into... nothing. She could see the Bug. She just couldn’t get to it.

"What the—" Jenny stumbled backward. It felt like she'd run face-first into a wall, but there was nothing there. Just empty air and more rain.

Tentatively, she reached out. Her fingers met an invisible barrier, solid and unyielding.

"Okay, this is officially weird," she muttered, pressing both palms against the unseen wall. "Did I hit my head? Am I hallucinating?

She walked along the barrier, testing it every few feet. It curved around, following the sparsely lit small town. When she'd made a complete circuit back to her car, Jenny let out a string of curses that would have made a sailor blush.

"This isn't happening," she said, running her hands through her wet hair. "This is just a stress dream. Too many late nights working on the Bug. Any second now, I'm going to wake up..."

She pinched herself. Hard.

"Ow! Okay, not dreaming. Fantastic. Just fantastic. I’m losing my mind."

With no other options presenting themselves—unless she wanted to test her rock-climbing skills on the sheer cliff facebordering one side of the road—Jenny turned and trudged toward the center of the town.

As she walked, her mind raced through possible explanations, each more outlandish than the last. Government experiment? Alien invasion? Elaborate prank show? She'd even take "you're in a coma, and this is all in your head" at this point.

What she didn't expect was to round a bend and find herself on a bustling main street that looked like it had been plucked straight out of a 1990s sitcom... if that sitcom had been directed by Tim Burton.

Buildings with quaint, old-fashioned facades lined the street, their windows glowing against the gloomy night. But something was off. The architecture twisted and leaned at impossible angles, defying the laws of physics. And the shop names...

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